Preview - From Ecosystems To Speciation

Looking at Metal Tolerance

Set the initial values to:

Setting

Value 

CHANCE-FLOWER-TIME-MUTATION 

0%

CHANCE-TOLERANCE-MUTATION

10%

INITIAL-TOLERANCE 

all no tolerance

VISUALIZE-TIME-STEPS

“days” or “years” 

(you may switch back and forth as the model is running)

​

  • Press SETUP. and Press GO/STOP to run the model. 

  • You can switch the VISUALIZE-TIME-STEPS to “years” or “days”. Years runs faster, but days lets you see the actual difference (if any) in flowering times between plants. 

  • Run, the model for at least a hundred years.

  • Analyze the FLOWER-TIMES graph.

  • Record your data in your Observation section.

Referenced Questions

These questions were answered in the previous steps. They are provided here for your reference.

What do you think would happen if metal tolerance was allowed to change, but flowering time was not?  Briefly explain your prediction.

Questions

Please answer the questions below.

Observations

Were your predictions correct? Explain.

What is the range of metal tolerance values?

Metal tolerance is inherited from both parent plants.  Knowing that all of the plants have the same flowering time, why do you think the plants mostly have similar metal tolerances, even when they are in the blue region?

The plants in the left region and the plants in the right region tend to have different metal tolerances.  Do you think they are still part of the same species?  Why?

Notes

These notes will appear on every page in this lesson so feel free to put anything here you'd like to keep track of.